(Updated, September 2014).In the early 19th century British ships were still vulnerable to surprise attacks by pirates, who used their knowledge of the sea and local conditions to full advantage. The ‘Aurora’ was a 14-gun sloop of 247 tons, launched at Bombay in 1809 for the Bombay Marine - the armed naval force run in the Eastern seas by the East India Company, mainly for trade defence: it became the Royal Indian Marine in 1830 and subsequently the basis of the modern Indian navy. In September 1809 'Aurora' was one of the joint naval and Bombay Marine squadron which went to the Persian Gulf to suppress Arab raiders operating out of Ras al-Khaimah, with only limited effect at that point. Mahratta (or Maratha) raiders in the Bay of Bay of Bengal were a longstanding problem for the Company and three wars were fought against the Mahratta Empire: 1775–1802, 1803–05, and 1817–18 before it was neutralized and subsequently absorbed into British India. This painting is one of a pair (the other being BHC1085) which entered the Museum as part of the Macpherson Collection in 1927 and the basis for the date of 1812 that has been long attached to the incident shown in them is no longer clear. If accurate, the 'Aurora' clearly beat off the assault given that she was still in the Bombay Marine in 1819 when she also took part in the final reduction of Ras al-Khaimah. In this image three Mahratta ship-rigged grabs, accompanied by smaller gallivats advance from the left against the 'Aurora' flying the distinctive striped Bombay Marine ensign. To her right a number of smaller lateen-rigged and apparently unarmed Indian craft, probably the merchant convoy 'Aurora' is escorting, fly the British red ensign. Buttersworth did other versions of the subject of Bombay Marine vessels attacked by Mahrattas of which one, then in the collection of Sir Ernest Robinson, was reproduced as frontispiece to Colonel John Biddulph's 'The Pirates of Malabar and an Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago' (London 1907).

Thomas Buttersworth (1768–1842), like many other British marine painters, was a seaman who recorded his experiences in paint and charcoal. Several of the 27 watercolours by him in the NMM are mounted on sheets from 18th-century printed signal and muster books. In 1795 he is documented as enlisting on board HM receiving ship ‘Enterprise’ in London. He served on the ‘Caroline’ during the Napoleonic Wars and was invalided home from Minorca in 1800. Paintings such as the ‘Nelson's Inshore Blockading Squadron at Cadiz, July 1797’ (BHC0499) probably reflect events he witnessed. Following his return to London, he was appointed Marine Painter to the East India Company and added commissioned ship portraits to his already prolific output of naval battle scenes.